Minimum wage on Colorado ballot

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Voters will decide this fall whether to gradually raise Colorado's minimum wage from $8.31 an hour to $12 by 2020. The citizen-driven initiative was approved for the November ballot by the Secretary of State's Office, which found it had enough valid petition signatures. It needed 98,492.

The campaign behind the ballot question, Colorado Families for a Fair Wage, claims the change would affect nearly 500,000 workers, 86 percent of whom are over the age of 20. The Colorado Center on Law and Policy, which supports the ballot question, says giving low-earning Coloradans a raise would better their personal lives and the economy by putting "more money in the pockets of workers to spend in the state and helping communities thrive."

Of course, not everyone is happy about the prospect. Americans for Prosperity Colorado, backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, released a statement claiming that raising the minimum wage won't reduce poverty and will reduce jobs in the state by tens of thousands.